


Escaping Fate

by clari_clyde



Category: Elementary
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 21:58:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clari_clyde/pseuds/clari_clyde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Through a deconstruction of attitudes, Joan offers Sherlock a new way of looking towards the future of himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Escaping Fate

**Author's Note:**

> Set shortly after “A Giant Gun, Filled with Drugs” (1x15) but no spoilers.

When Joan walks into the kitchen, she is greeted by the sight of the kitchen table littered with water kettle parts . . . her water kettle parts . . . her water kettle.

“Holmes!”

“Watson!”

“What are you doing to my water kettle?”

“Your kettle’s shrill is annoying. But with a simple modification — ”

“It’s a water kettle whistle.” Joan places her hands on the table and leans over her kettle parts towards Sherlock. “It’s supposed to be annoying.”

“No no.” Sherlock doesn’t “It need only alert one that the water is boiling. There is no reason that alert must be annoying. Why couldn’t it have a pleasant tone to it?”

Joan’s eyes narrow at the screwdriver, pliers, and hammer mixed in among the kettle parts.

“True. But that’s a lot of effort you’re putting in. Why is this so important?”

“Well, with your menstrual cycle approaching — ”

“Holmes!” Joan glares daggers at Sherlock. “I’ve said this once but I’ll say it again. Just because you crouch it in scientific terms that doesn’t negate the misogyny of it. You realize the sexism of thinking a woman is emotionally compromised once a month because of her estrogen levels — ”

“Actually, I thought it was the proges . . . ter . . . one . . .” Sherlock lets his sentence fade as Joan, still glaring daggers at him, walks around the table to advance towards him.

“Either way, you do believe that women are compromised once a month.”

“And and and!” Sherlock perks up from his seat. “Men, too, from raises in testosterone levels. In fact, men are compromised daily and that’s without anything to trigger a raise. So. Men are compromised daily — at least.”

“Hm . . .”

Joan tilts her head but her eyes are still narrow and glaring. Yet with that attempt at appeasement, Sherlock relaxes and slumps back into his seat. But he raises an eyebrow at Joan’s still glaring gaze and another advance.

“You know,” Joan says, “or you probably don’t know . . .”

Joan circles Sherlock; as much as she can with the kitchen table in front of him, her body traces tightening arcs around him.

“Calendar methods are only a guessing game. The only way to predict a woman’s next cycle is to know her date of ovulation and the length of her luteal phase. So — ”

With him in front of her, she spins his chair so he faces her and rests her hands on the table, trapping him between the table — with all her kettle’s parts — and her.

“Do tell me know you have my cycle figured out. The wrong answer proves your ignorance; the right answer proves your deserving a restraining order against you. Think carefully — very carefully — how you want to answer.”

“Well . . .” Sherlock eyes widen in fear of Joan looming above him. “Once a month you, um, point to a day and, um, you count ahead the same number of days. And you never seem surprised by the arrival of your cycle.”

Sherlock lets out a deep breath but sharply takes in another when Joan’s eyes remain narrow and glaring.

“With your medical expertise, I merely assumed there was a high possibility that you had found a consistent and reliable method for figuring out your cycle.”

Joan relaxes and straightens up herself but yet still looms over Sherlock. 

“And yet, that time at the club, you made it sound as if _you_ had it all figured out.”

“I figured _you_ out . . .”

Sherlock sinks back when Joan raises an eyebrow. “Or . . . I figured out your habits . . . ?”

“So. You like projecting that you know everything.”

“But my deductions are — ” Sherlock then stops himself as he thinks better. “Yes.”

Is that a smile beginning to form on Joan’s face?

“And you guessed about me.”

“I merely made an assumption about how your medical expertise would affect your lifestyle.”

“Okay. First: That’s just a fancy way of saying you guessed that I have a brain and that I use my brain in real life. Second: You guessed that I knew something that you didn’t.” Joan makes her way to the other side of the kitchen table and lifts up her water kettle without its whistle and points to its uncovered spout. “Third: If you break my kettle, you’re buying me a new one.”

“I assure you Watson, long before dinner time, I shall make you a cuppa tea. Perhaps that green tea you bought over the weekend.”

“Hey. That tea is $15 per ounce. Don’t burn the tea leaves.”

“Not to worry Watson.” Sherlock gets up to rummage through the tea cupboard for the canister for the tea in question. I shall meticulously follow instructions and . . . oh my. 60° celsius!” Sherlock rushes to the drawers to rummage through them. “Again, not to worry Watson.”

Sherlock pulls out a metal, oven-proof meat thermometer.

“This thermometer’s probe fits through the kettle’s whistle. I shall stand over the stove and closely monitor the water’s temperature.”

“Whistle is useless with the thermometer stuck through it.” Joan laughs. “So you didn’t need to tinker with the kettle at all, hm?”

“Not now, no.” Sherlock says with a haughty forward shrug of a shoulder. “When I’m done, the act of boiling water will create a more pleasant note to look forward to . . . Drats! Testing the whistle’s new tone might have to wait another time.”

“Whatever Holmes. Just make the tea.” Joan turns to leave the kitchen but before she steps out, she turns back and says, “And when you’re ready, we’ll have a chat — over tea — about your belief in ‘biology is destiny.’ ”

“Actually — ” Sherlock frowns. “ ‘Biology is fate’ is more accurate. I don’t know how many translations you read but, fate has more fatalistic connotations and every now and then, fate is translated into the other language’s word for ‘death.’ ”

“So you believe that? ‘Biology is fate’ ? ” Joan sighs. “Well, I believe I’m here to cure you of that attitude.”

“And what an interesting belief you have about your former job. But really Watson. What do you believe in.”

“You really want to know?”

“Yes I really want to know.”

“Okay then. I believe — ” Joan pauses before starting. “You can be a slave to your body. Or you can learn about your body and let that inform you. Or you can learn about your body and let that inform the choices you make. That last one? That’s not fate. It also sounds like something you haven’t been doing.”

And with that, Joan is out the door. But just a moment later, Sherlock hears her from the hall. “The last thing you need is your knowledge informing your surrender. So, when you’re ready we’ll talk about it over tea.”

Sherlock sits himself down back at the table. As quick as he can, he crews the spout’s cover back into place; the sooner he can finish, the sooner he can make tea, and the sooner they will have that chat.

Certainly — Sherlock muses to himself — knowledge is power. What trite words. Without the will to empower one’s self, knowledge becomes its own power over one’s self. But if Joan Watson doesn’t believe in the inevitability of fate, she must believe in the escape of it. 


End file.
